Easter 2016

For the rest of the shutdown I helped David, Tony, and Sandra build metal shelves and assemble them as a parts storage area for Maintenance.  We got the job finished and were let go early on Friday - at noon.

On Saturday morning we drove to Red Lodge and ate breakfast at Cafe Regis.  It was crowded, but probably not as crowded as it would be on Easter Sunday!

We came back home and I assembled two deep hive boxes for Bob.

I called Mom and found out that the potted pink roses I ordered for her were delivered on Good Friday.  I guess there is always a difference between the picture of the item you ordered (shown here) and how it actually looks when it is delivered.

For Easter dinner Bob made a spiral cut ham with rosemary maple carrots, buttered wax beans, and deviled eggs.  We drove to Powell and brought 160 gallons of water home because the forecast was calling for snow Sunday night.

As it turns out, it did not snow, but it was raining when I got up this morning.   Everything is very muddy now.  It is still cloudy and there is still a good chance that it could snow tonight through Wednesday.

Funny

During lunch in the break room I was telling somebody a story and a busy body girl butted in and asked me to repeat something I said.  I replied to her singing, "Oh we're not ones to go 'round spreading rumors... no really, we're just not the gossipin' kiiind... no you'll never hear one of us repeatin' gossip... sooo you'd better be sure and listen close the first time!"

The janitor asked me if I remembered Hee Haw from the 1970's and I said that I did... "with Buck Owens, Roy Clark, Grandpa Jones, and Minnie Pearl."  He asked me how many verses of "Where Oh Where Are You Tonight" I could recite.  Amazingly, the entire room of 14 people began to sing it in unison!

We are shut down this week and there is a lot of maintenance going on.  Most of the API operators have to escort contractors and do special jobs for other departments.  We are on eight-hour days from 6:30 AM until 3:00 PM.

It is lightly raining here this evening.   There is a very good chance of snow tonight, but temps are supposed to reach the 50's again tomorrow.

Vernal Equinox

On Wednesday morning we drove to Powell, had breakfast at McDonald's, and then did our laundry.  We picked up a few things at the supermarket, including 6 heads of cabbage at 48¢ per pound.  We brought a 200-gallon load of water home with us from Powell.

We went to Cody in the afternoon.  I attended training at work while Bob went to the yarn store.  After my training we took Buddy over to the dog park and let him run around off the leash for a little while.

Thursday was St Patrick's Day.  It snowed.  We stayed home and we made a crock of sauerkraut.  Later I lit a fire in the stove to make the house more comfortable.

We stayed home on Friday because I was expecting a shipment from FedEx, but it was not delivered.  Now the website says my package isn't expected until Wednesday!  I got our trash barrel lit and I burned all of the cardboard that has been piling up.

Today we drove to Cody and ate breakfast at McDonald's.  Then we drove down to Thermopolis and visited Hotsprings State Park.  We soaked in the pool for a while, then we went to the Wyoming Dinosaur Center nearby.

On the way back home we stopped in Meeteetse and got truffles at the Meeteetse Chocolatier and ate lunch across the road at the Cowboy Bar.

I am working Monday thru Friday this week, but it will only be 8 hour days because we are shut down.

Ides of March

I went to work yesterday and worked all day, but I was very tired and I broke out into a sweat very easily.

We worked on cleaning equipment in Room 4 from the second dihydromorphine reprocessing, and we made the room ready for line clearance to begin the third batch.

While I was in Quality Assurance looking for an inspector to give us line clearance, I stopped at Ann Wilson's desk.  Ann is in charge of training at Cody Labs.  She had Lloyd Waddell's training record and she was stamping "ARCHIVED" on it.  I looked at her quizzically.  She said that Lloyd quit on Thursday of last week.

Well, well.  That sure was news!

Because we are working from an old batch record, Jolene had to come to Room 4 with Garrett to give line clearance.  It's a good thing too - I don't think I could have helped him with it either!

We got line clearance but could not begin because the batch record was not ready yet - there were a lot of pen-and-ink changes to be made and notes to be added to it.  Crew A started the lot during the night.

After work I went to the Cody Water Dock and got 200 gallons of water.  It was just about dark when I backed in with the water.  While I was draining it into our tank it began to sleet.  The only good thing is that a dinner of tacos was on the table when I came in.

Before bed we watched the RuPaul's Drag Race (it's Season 10!).

This morning Tony and I finished the lot.  We had to add ammonium hydroxide to get the batch to crystalize and then we added more to get the pH up over 8.0.  After that we dropped the batch into the buchner funnel and started the washes.

We gave it eight purified water washes, two isopropyl alcohol washes, and one hexane wash.  The product remained in the buchner drying for the next five hours while we ate lunch and did other things.

I got another quality assurance inspector, Harley Booth, and had him sign off on cleaning the drying trays and scoops, and the cleaning of the room in Room 1.  The batch is going to be moved to that room and put into trays for drying later.

Once that was over I pumped a barrel of liquid waste and then I did our Safety Zone Inspection while Chris and Tony went to FDA Inspection Training.

When I returned from the zone inspection, I was sitting down outside of our cubicle.  Dagny, the Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS) officer came up and wanted to know where Tim was.  I called him on the radio and found out that he was in the break room.

Dagny:  "I have a question for you guys.  Do you guys wipe down the kegs and sample bottles before you take product to the vault?"

Me:  "Oh you bet we do!  We wipe them down with IPA on a lint-free towel.  We know that if the material handler at the vault sees any powder on the container they will have a fit!"

Dagny:  "Do you wipe it more than once?"

Me:  "No, and how would I even know if the second wiping was effective?  I mean, I can't even see it - it's a white powder on a white plastic container."

Dagny:  "Well, we had two employees test positive for drugs this week."

Me:  "And how do you know it was an occupational exposure?  How do you know they aren't abusing?"

Dagny:  "Oh, we're pretty sure.  One of them was in API."

Oh boy.  As it turns out, it wasn't someone working in the room manufacturing the stuff.  Someone who practically swims in the product.  No.  It was our supervisor, Tim!

The story is that he got exposed by touching a sample bottle with cocaine residue on it and that made him test positive for drugs.

I am doubtful about this.  He would have had to put his fingers in his mouth or eyes or something like that to get the cocaine into his bloodstream.  This story does not have the ring of truth to it.

So now everyone has to wear gloves when handling any controlled substance container.

You can't make this stuff up!

I have the next five days off, but I have to go to the plant tomorrow to attend Substance Abuse Training (oh the irony) tomorrow.  We are going to do our laundry tomorrow too.

Clark, Wyoming

On Friday afternoon we took the water tank off of the truck bed.  On Sunday we headed to Red Lodge and had breakfast at Cafe Regis, then we turned north up US 212 and went to Billings.

We popped into the Home Depot and got a couple of bags of vermiculite for our garden soil.  Then we browsed the computers at Best Buy - we want to get a set of all-in-one computers to replace our aging set up.  Then we went to Lowe's where I got a 14-inch bandsaw.

After this we headed out to Grand Avenue where we browsed the Lucky's grocery store.  It is nice and has many of the natural and gluten-free items we buy.  Then it was over to Sam's Club to get a big plastic deck storage box.

We had lunch at Hardee's in Laurel and then headed back home.  I unloaded the stuff from the truck bed and carried the boxes inside.  Bob helped me move the deck box upstairs to the roof where we will store the gas grill, watering can, and other things inside of it.  I also brought in the last six cases of books from the shed.  Then I took the curtains down off of the short window in the bedroom and hemmed them so that they would clear the new bookcase.

It was quite a busy day!  In the evening we went ahead and set the clocks forward one hour so that we would be on-time in the morning.

I went to Cody and went to work this morning, but I was not feeling well.  As soon as I jumped down from the truck my guts let go and I pooped my pants!  I had a headache and fever.  After shift turnover, I told Tim that I needed to go home.

I slept most of the morning, got up and ate a little bit, and then napped most of the afternoon.  After Bob finished walking Buddy, he helped me get the water tank lifted back up on to the bed of the truck and I strapped it down.

The winds are really blowing today and the weather service says a cold front is coming through.  The mountains are expected to get over a foot of snow!

Clark, Wyoming

My three days passed quickly.  We made more Cocaine Hydrochloride and started some EME.   We had an All-API Meeting on Wednesday night.

Yesterday we drove to Billings to buy groceries.  We had breakfast at Cracker Barrel, and then Bob got a haircut.  We got a few things at Natural Grocer and then headed over to Sam's Club.  After Sam's we went to the Wal*Mart in Laurel to finish up our grocery.

When we got home we saw the the UPS driver had been by.  She left two large packages next to our storage container and a smaller one at the front door with a rock on top of it to keep it from blowing away.

The two large boxes were new bookcases.  We are putting one in the bedroom and one upstairs.  I will be able to bring the rest of my books out of storage now.

This morning we put the two bookcases together and put a few books out on them.  Later we drove to Powell and brought a load of 200 gallons of water back.

The weather continues to be beautiful and it looks like we will be having an early spring.  Farmers are burning off the weeks and plowing fields already.

Changes

This week I went to fire fighting training on Monday and Tuesday.  Cody Labs' EHS Department contracted with AERT to conduct the training at the Cody Fire Training Facility above Beck Lake Park.  EHS also purchased some very nice professional equipment for everyone who would be a fire fighter and they bought a big trailer full of equipment that would serve as a mobile command post.

A very large red canvass bag was distributed to each fire figher.  It contained bunker pants, jacket, suspenders, steel-toed rubber boots, pliers, gloves, nippers, caribiner, drag rope, flashlight, rubber wedge, flash hood, and fiberglass helmet.  We worked through putting the equipment on.  Then we were timed while putting the ensemble on.  During the training, a whistle would be blown at random times and we would immediately launch into a dress out drill.  The goal was to have everyone dressed and suited up with an MSA self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) withing 2 minutes 30 seconds.

One of the first things we were told - "If you think your equipment is not working right, do not go into the fire!"

I was having trouble with the drills because my lower legs and jeans would not go down into the boots.  They took some size 12 boots out of Frankie Woods bag and let me use those and it helped a little, but I was very frustrated with this situation.

We were taken outside and shown the steel fire box where we would conduct training.  Inside they would light a wood fire and we would get practice with our air packs and practice egress.  They lit the fire and it burned and smoked the place up.  Of course my bell went off warning me that I was running out of air during this event.  I did not panic- I stayed calm because I still had plenty of air.  Finally the sprinkler went off and while it put the fire out, the steam made the visibility go to zero.  The instructor called "punch out" and we all got up and left the box.  While I was turning the air off and venting the pack I found out that my air by-pass valve was cracked open and that was why I was running out of air!

On Day 2 we did more timed drills and got some class room instruction on fire.  Later we went out and worked with foam fire extinguishers, an AFFF foam generator kit, and we put out live fires inside the steel box.

When it was my turn to go into the box, I opened my air valve on the SCBA, but I did not hear the bell ring. also my digital display and PASS alarm were not working.  I went in because I was pressured to by the staff and the other students and everything worked out fine.

Later, back in the classroom, Dagny, the EHS officer for Cody Labs, was changing our air bottles,  I told her that my SCBA unit had a low battery.   She said, "No it doesn't - it's just a little 'flaky'."  She re-issued the same faulty SCBA to me to use the following day.

That was the last straw.  From past experience with her department, I knew this was something that she would do in real life too.  Tim left two hours early that day because it was his wife's birthday, so he was not there to talk with.  I worried about quitting because I knew management would not be happy about it, but I called Chris Schuler and told him that I was not going anymore.  "This is not something I want to do."

He called our manager and talked about it with him and discussed it with Dagny.  They decided to have Tony take my place on the team and I would get to work in API on Thursday night.  I was perfectly happy to do that.

When I got home I told Bob about it and he agreed that I did the right thing.  He said, "She is going to get someone killed."  Bob is my personal SCBA expert.

I went to work on Thursday evening.  When I got there Destry the security guard told me "turn around" while twirling his finger in the air.  I turned and around and looked at the wall where pictures of senior management hang.  There used to be 8 pictures there, but only 7 were there now.  I counted and said, "What happened to Dave Watson?"

"He was escorted out of here about 24 hours ago."  Bernhard himself fired him.  Wow.  We don't know for sure, but we suspect Dave did something that was not politically correct.  That is the surest way to get fired from Cody Labs.

I worked with Chris and Sandra and our night was fairly easy.  We had about 4 hours of work in Room 001 with the Cocaine HCl PV lot, we did daily logs and maintenance, and we cleaned some rooms for sampling later.

At 5:30 AM the Quality Assurance Inspector came in and gave us line clearance on three rooms.  Then Sandra and I dressed up and did a quick sampling marathon going from room to room taking the required samples.  We took the final sample and wrapped up the residual waste just as it was time for turn over.

After work I picked up 200 gallons of water from the water dock and came home.  I stayed up for a couple of hours, but I needed some sleep.  I slept until 3:30 PM.  When I got up I took Buddy for his evening walk, collected the eggs, and herded the chickens into their house.  I got on the computer and paid my bills - I am temporarily debt-free and have some money in savings!  Then we went out to eat.

We drove to Red Lodge and ate at the Red Lodge Pizza Kitchen.  Bob had a guacamole burger with sweet potato tots and I had a 10 ounce steak with fries and a salad.  We popped into the IGA and got a carton of chocolate ice cream before we carefully drove home in the dark.

Now I have a couple of days off before going in on Monday morning and starting day shift.